


The Gang Finds A New Charlie

by Melee12, WaldosAkimbo



Series: Hermann and Newt and Charlie Play With Portals [2]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Charbitch, Companion Piece, Gen, M/M, Newt died but he got better, Universe Sharing, newmann - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-08-04 11:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16346066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melee12/pseuds/Melee12, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Newt died. He put up a fight against the Precursors, but he died. He was so sure of it. He saw Hermann one last time and before he could promise to marry the man or something equally bold and romantic, he died. Right?Except, he wakes up in a basement and a bunch of people are calling him by another name. So, that's weird. Now he has to find his way back to Hermann and make things right.





	1. I'm Here, I'm Here!

**Author's Note:**

> This is the companion piece that goes with "But You're Right Here."

_12 am – On a Monday_

_Philadelphia, PA_

Something’s not right.

It’s not right, but it’s not _not_ right? It’s not not _not_ right.

It’s wrong, dude.

That’s it.

At first, of course, the darkness doesn’t even feel wrong. It feels warm and a little sticky and that’s not exactly weird, because, hell, sometimes he got left in the dark as punishment. That was a trick pulled over on him more times than he could count. He pushes his hand up to his forehead and notices the fever is gone. Everything had been burning up so badly, so terribly badly, and it was just….

_Hermann!_

Newt sits up, knocking his head on a low level shelf stacked up with what looks and smells like old paint cans. He groans, holding his head again, tucking his knees up. He hears the familiar scrape of his shoes across the floor and is grateful for the fact that he has come to in some bullshit murder basement with his clothes on.

None of this makes sense.

He had been lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to too many wires and lines to be comfortable, fighting to stay alive just long enough to tell Hermann, love, bastard, soulmate of his own, _I should have been with you. Always. I should have been right there. And I love you. And I want to be with you for the rest of my life._ But his stupid piece of shit body was shutting down after the fight to drive the Precursors out and he….

He died….

Didn’t he?

Well, apparently, tales of his demise were greatly exaggerated. Or whatever. Whatever, the point is, he feels very much alive and if this is some stupid version of heaven to make up for a loud-mouthed blasphemous atheist, fine. Fine, he is going to have to figure this out, but he wants Hermann. He is going to figure out how to get to Hermann. So, watch out, God, or, whatever.

Whatever.

Newt sinks back down, holding his head, holding his stomach, feeling the aftershock of waking up in the slightly sticky, slightly warm basement of _wherever_ and seriously wants to vomit. He thinks, well, it can’t hurt the smell, can it? This place _stinks_.

“Charlie!” someone yells from the top of the stairs. A man, by the sounds of it, but who’s to judge. Some people think Newt’s basically a steel trap swinging shut when he yells, so. “Look, buddy, you almost done down there or what?”

“Who…?”

Newt realizes they’re looking for someone. This Charlie whomever. Oh, great. Another kidnapper who went and stole a _dying man_ from a _hospital_ at the goddamn _PPDC_ is down here. With him. He tugs his legs in tighter and breathes painfully loud through his nose, straining to hear where this Charlie goon was lurking about.

“Charlie!”

Now there are steps and Charlie moans pathetically, his heart racing so hard it feels like it’s trying to tear out his own chest. He’s uncertain if he’s ever felt fear like this before. He’s certain he’s felt worse. So much worse. This is nothing. This is just. It just fucking sucks, but it’s not the worst. He’s faced the worst.

Somehow, that calms him. He stops shaking and he finds his feet again, pushing himself up in time to pat along the wall. He squints in the low-level light and picks up one of the paint cans. _Green_. Whatever. He holds it up and is ready to bring it down on this _kidnapper-murderer-sonovabitch_ when a big bastard with a chiseled face and a tight shirt that proclaims RIOT in bold black letters rounds the corner and smiles.

“Dude! We’ve—”

Newt screams and bashes the guy’s head with the paint can.

It’s one lousy hit and Newt’s hands are so slick, he drops the can almost immediately, tripping backwards and crashing to the floor. The big guy groans, holding his head before he looks at Newt with a pinched, pained face.

“Charlie, what the _hell_ , man?”

“I-I-I-“

“Are you _high_? That hurt, dude! I’m gonna have a scar!”

Newt is breathing faster, hyperventilating. He just wants Hermann. He wants Hermann to rush in outta nowhere with his cane held high and beat this bastard down. He wants to wrap his trembling arms around him and bury his face in amongst that musty warmth and just die there. Die there instead of here, alone, with this beefcake bastard cursing at him. Not attacking him, even. Not…

“What did you call me?” Newt asks, his voice so high and trembly that it cracks in three places.

But the man is too busy touching his head, looking at the growing spot of blood. Head wounds always bleed like a bitch. It probably isn’t even that bad. Newt almost says this, but he’s just trying to stay upright.

“Charlie, seriously. I don’t know what you’re scheming here but knock it off.”

“Charlie,” Newt repeats, laughing a little shrilly and touching his own head. Gripping his hair. “Dude, I’m not—”

“Man, what’re you even doing down here?” The man stands up to his full height. There’s no way Newt can take him. No way. He shrinks back until he bumps one of the shelving units. Something rolls away and he swears he sees three rats skitter off into the dark. There’s the snap of a trap and he winces, squeezing his eyes shut tight. Not for long, because he can’t keep his eyes of this guy. He doesn’t want to get rushed and knocked over and worse. “Where’d you get those clothes?”

Newt looks down and tugs at his shirt. It’s his shirt. He recognizes it as his own. A nice button-down, nice slacks. Expensive belt. That stupid ring. Christ, Hermann didn’t take off Alice’s…well, not Alice, that stupid…. Newt rubs the ring around his finger, still looking down. He bets he looks small. He is small. These are his…well, he doesn’t _like_ these clothes. But they’re his. They’re from, well, with Alice. Not Alice. Alice was defeated. Is defeated. _Is_ gone. Right? And Liwen. And everything. Newt starts to tear up, looking at these stupid clothes. This stupid ring. He had to dress nicer. But he didn’t think he was wearing this when he was in the hospital bed. What the _hell_ happened?

This is hell.

This is _Hell_.

“Dude.” Newt blinks and sniffles as he starts rolling up his sleeves, trying, trying, _trying_ to get control. He needs control. He rolls up his sleeves and breathes out a watery sigh of relief when he sees his tattoos. _Yes. Still me._ “I think—”

“Whoa!” The man drops his hand, ignoring his head wound to grab Newt’s arm, who is too stunned to pull back. “When’d you get these?”

The man looks impressed. Newt spots a few faded tattoos across the man’s arms. Little emblems. Nothing like the expanse of old Kaiju tattoos he has, but still. At least they can both appreciate a little ink culture.

No. No, he’s thinking about how to bond with this guy! No! Newt squirms to pull his arm back, but the man has a tight grip. He feels his skin crawling.

“Charlie, man—”

“Hey, I’m n—”

“Mac!” someone else yells upstairs and they both turn to the sound. Another man. “Charlie! You assholes almost done or what?”

“Just a sec, Den!” the man yells back. Newt puts two and two together. This one is Mac. That one is Den? Whatever. “Charlie’s acting weird.”

“I’m not Charlie,” Newt says quickly, before he can be interrupted again. But that just makes Mac laugh.

“Oh,” he finally says, letting go of Newt’s arm. “Oh, I get it now. This is one of your costume deals, right?”

“What? No. No, I’m—”

“Who’re you trying to be this time?” Mac shakes his head. “Where did you even get these _clothes_ dude? Although, gotta admit. The tattoos look real.”

“They are real,” Newt answers heatedly. They cost a lot of time and money. They are a point of pride. There is no way he’s _not_ going to defend them. “You’re not listening!”

“Okay, man,” Mac says, rolling his eyes. “Come on. We gotta get upstairs.”

“You’re really not listening.”

“Come on,” Mac says again and waves his hand, leading the way upstairs.

Newt feels helpless. He looks around the basement, the questionable items, the damp walls, the furnace. This place _looks_ like a death trap. _Hell_ , he thinks again. _This is Hell._ Because, obviously, the man who brings over Kaiju and kills, like, way too many people while being possessed by a hivemind doesn’t get Heaven. Not even, like, atheist Heaven, or whatever. He gets Hell. This is Hell.

Or not.

He’s alive, right? Maybe? Kinda?

Newt can’t stay here. He has to get out of here and if he has to follow this Mac guy upstairs to do…something? Fine. It shouldn’t be too hard to get out if they think Newt’s this Charlie-whatever guy. Play along. Get out. Find Hermann. That’s all he has to do. Priorities.

He trudges up the stairs, pulling on the ring stuck around his finger, and drops it on the stairs. Fuck that ring. He’s saving that finger for Hermann.

God.

Please don’t let this be actual Hell.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt discovers he's in a bar. In Philadelphia. In the wrong. Goddamn. Year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dip, I'm so sorry about the huge delay between chapters. Life, man. What a gas. Anyways, I'm not letting this die!

“Okay, what the hell is this?”

With hardly any other option, Newt follows the Mac guy up the stairs into what looks like a regular, if somewhat rundown dive bar. Not somewhat. Very rundown. Very dive-y. His feet stick to floor. There are _bullet_ holes in the ceiling. And, now that he’s looking, wires too. Just. Hanging down. In the shadows, but still there if anyone bothered to look up. Newt looks up. Newt looks everywhere, eyes bugging out to take everything in.

Some part of him. Some part of him _sings_ in this environment. It’s everything that little grungy punk kid wanted. It’s where he would try to play his band. It’s where he’d get into too many fights with people much bigger than him and wreck his vocal chords and break a few instruments and have a history here. Learn the locals, and—

Right.

Learn the locals.

Newt stares. That’s what he does. He stares and he just takes it all in, squashing down that yearning for what could have been, because his life, if he is completely honest, is a _what could have been_ at every turn. Especially right after Pitfall and Hermann and….

Christ. Hermann.

No, okay, the bar. The locals. It’s not a murder dungeon basement downstairs. Not some secret Kaiju-fanatic base of observations either— _that_ terrible little thought has been running through his head as possibly the only explanation as to _why_ he has been stolen from the hospital under the PPDC. Kaiju worshipers are insane. He knows that. He worked with a couple of them when he was…well…trying to destroy the world, but that wasn’t who he was. Not really. Not.

Kinda.

Shit.

Shit, maybe he deserved this.

Fuck, he deserves this.

Newt almost slips, almost tripping as Mac or whatever brings them upstairs and Newt has been trying to mentally prepare for that and is not at all prepared for.

A bar.

Just.

Some east coast bar.

 _Okaaaay_.

“Okay, dude? Who are you trying to be today?” the same man from before asks, crossing his arms. Newt recognizes the voice.

“Den, right?” Newt smiles, rubbing one of his wrists. He’s not shackled but still presents himself like he is. He’s been locked up for months and it’s almost second nature to just to hold himself that way. Keep himself still. Keep himself smaller. Keep himself…more _palatable_ , if he’s honest, and it does not come easy to a man who has decided to be brash about every goddamn choice of his goddamn life but it’s almost a trick for literally nobody’s benefit but his own.

“Uh. Yeah, buddy,” the slender man behind the bar says. He scoffs. He rolls his eyes. He looks at the others like his opinion is king around here.

Blue shirt, carefully coifed hair. Newt clocks him as the sort’ve man who puts too much effort into his appearance and is trying, but barely, but trying to hold his entire world together. Newt _gets_ him. Newt also gets when he puts on this act of being the smartest bastard in the room. Good try, but Newt’s got him beat. It’s not a gloating thing, it’s just a fact. He can already tell. He can feel it coming up and smacking him in the face. He can feel Mac reaching up and snapping in his face.

Newt flinches, draws back, and holds his hands up to his chest.

“Whoa, okay, when did Charlie get tattoos?”

Newt twists his attention to check out a blonde woman sitting at the bar, regarding the group. She’s thin with blonde hair and the same tired, bruised look as Den. Gotta be related. She’s kinda pretty, actually, but she sits well with this group of intimidating-yet-pathetic jerks. And Newt’s not intimidated by them, to be sure. Not anymore. Nobody’s trying to murder him. They aren’t fifty-foot-tall monsters. They aren’t a hivemind picking apart his head. They’re just people. He can fuck with people.

“Oh my god, I’m not Charlie,” Newt moans, scrubbing his temples.

“Right,” says Mac, patting his arm. “See, because he has a costume on, but I’m still trying to figure out who he’s trying to play.”

“No, okay, but those look real,” the woman says, clearly being ignored by the others. “Charlie, are those real?”

“Uh, yeah, dude. Sat for more than thirty hours getting them done, so,” Newt says, clearly bristling.

He tugs at his collar, showing off the lines that snake around his neck and collarbone. The woman’s eyes bulge and she swallows whatever cheap drink she’s been nursing. God, Newt wants a drink. He wants several. He wants to drown, but that’s too many steps backwards and he wants to go forward. He wants to find Hermann.

He wants to cry.

He’s pulled out of his little spiral when Mac licks his thumb and tries to rub one of Newt’s tats off his arm. He jerks awake, pulling out of Mac’s hand easily.

“No, yeah, okay. Real.”

“No shit!” Newt screeches, and tugs on his hair. “Listen, can I have a phone? Or something? I want to call, fuck, I don’t know. Where are we?”

“Did he hit his head?” Den asks Mac, ignoring Charlie for a moment as he comes around the bar.

“I dunno, man. I found him on the floor.”

“No, you.” Newt grips his hair. “Never mind. I wanna get in touch with the PPDC or…fuck, listen.”

“Huffing something?” Den asks, grabbing Newt’s arms. Newt yanks back again but Den is more stubborn, sliding his bony hands up to Newt’s wrists and helping him take his hands out of his hair. He has such strikingly piercing eyes, actually. Newt winces away from the color, from the stranger who has him mistaken for someone else and has these preconceived familiarities that he is not ready for. “Nah, his eyes aren’t bloodshot. Okay, Charlie?”

“I’m not—”

“Hey!” Den barks back, framing Newt’s face and yelling a quick succession of “oy! Oy! Oy!” over and over, and it’s so fucking weird, so fucking loud, that Newt just shrinks in his hands.

“What the fuck?” Newt whispers after Den goes quiet again, still holding his cheeks. Tugging his chin a little and running fingers through his hair.

“Yeah, dude’s completely scrambled,” Den says offhandedly to the group, letting go of Newt.

“Can I…can I have a cell phone?” Newt tries again. “Please?” God, he’s gonna start begging them any second, actually. He can feel it.

“Who d’you think you’re gonna call?” Mac asks, already fishing his own out of his pocket and handing it over, pausing, taking it back so he can hunch over it and stare at them conspiratorially before punching in his password and swiping away several notifications that Newt recognizes as that old Grindr app he was _definitely_ too young to use the last time it even meant anything. He hands the phone back over and Newt snatches it, typing in his webmail inbox and getting an error message.

“They locked me out?” Newt mutters. Mac’s hovering over his shoulder, and makes an amused sound.

“What’re you trying to type in, buddy? I’ll get it for you.”

“Oh my god, I can type, Mac,” Newt snaps back. He tries Google instead, types in PPDC to get the LA website. Schlocky, yeah, but he can probably find an external number to get a hold of.

Nothing.

“Puh-puh-dick, huh?” Mac takes the phone back before Newt can register what’s happening. “Seriously, dude.” Mac’s laughing at him as he clears another screen and nudges Newt with his shoulder. “What’re you looking for?”

“Did they close down the PPDC completely while I was in your stupid basement?” Newt asks, his voice tightening. “Jesus, how long have I been down there?”

“The PD-what-now?”

Okay. Okay, if they’re on the east coast…in a shit bar…. _maybe_ these people just didn’t know the name of the Pan Pacific Defense Corp. It was only attacks to the pacific, obviously, the ring of fire. So. Maybe these people were just willfully ignorant.

“Can you look up Hermann?” Newt tries, pushing closer to MAC to try and get his phone again. The muscle-head blocks Newt out and holds his phone up like a bully. “Dr. Hermann Gottlieb. Please, Mac.”

“Yeah, okay! Chill!” Mac shoves him again and Den and the woman step in closer, interested in whatever weird new person their supposed friend has invented. “Doctor….Hermann…. One ‘n’ or two?”

“Two!” Newt shrieks and the group share a look.

“Okay, one 'n' it is,” Mac says and Newt can’t take this. He lunges up, grabs the phone, and races for the door. There’s shouting, obviously, but he punches open an old green door and steps into blinding light of a warm Philadelphia summer day. It hurts. Shit, how long has it been since he’s seen….no. No, no, no. No, Newt, ducks his head down and quickly types out the name into Google, his fingers slipping as jogs as fast as he can away from the dive bar.

Nothing.

Nobody.

Well, Herms always had a shit social media presence, but they had done all those junkets together! And the scientific journals they had submitted at the very least?

Newt cleared it and typed his own name, just to see.

Pictures of newts showed up, yeah, that always happened. Okay, full name. Aaaand…Isaac Newton. Okay, but he had all those old journals and YouTube videos and…and….

Newt jostles to a stop at a crosswalk, holding his head and staring at the stupid old phone from that jockhead bully he’d stolen it from. He swipes up to check the time and the date hits him harder than a kaiju foot to the chest.

August 23rd. 2018.

2018.

_2018._

Newt drops the phone and holds his chest. His breathing has become erratic and he can barely hear the traffic, the honking horns, the breathing life around him. He hears his heart. He hears a roaring sound, rising up and up and up and then, with the barest pressure on his left shoulder, he hears the only familiar voice he has ever wanted to hear in a million years, through all the precursor screams, through all the insane shit of wrong years and wrong life and wrong world and wrong wrong wrong wrong.

He hears him. And Newt hears the wrong name cross those thin, wide lips as he turns to greet him.

“Charlie?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt finally runs into Hermann, but, obviously this universe's version of Hermann is not the man he left behind. He's gonna have to make friends with him and prove he's not whoever Charlie Kelly is.

Newt wraps his arms tightly around the man’s torso anyways. Fuck it. It looks like Hermann. It _smells_ like Hermann, and this might be a mirror universe of horror, so Newt has decided to take comfort in the tiny and insignificant. In Hermann.

“Oh!” He feels so awkward and stiff, and it feels even more like home because of that. “I’m…I’m sorry if I startled you.”

“I’m so fucking relieved to see you.”

Newt buries his face against Hermann’s shoulder, close to tears now. This Mirror-Hermann pats Newt’s arm and lifts his hand just as quickly, and mutters, “When did you get…tattoos?” Worse yet when Mirror-Hermann pushes back a little and ghosts his hands so briefly over Newt’s forehead, one could easily imagine he hasn’t touched Newt at all. _Christ_ , it’s so soft. “Charlie, are you alright? Do I need to call someone for you?”

“Charlie,” Newt whispers and his vision blurs too hard. He can’t remember the last time he cried, actually. He thinks he should have cried a lot when he was under the Precursors, but, that didn’t really happen back then. No, back then, he was hopped up on his success, on his super cool new job, on how brilliant and awesome and kinda a major asshole, but, like, in an intoxicatingly sexy way, right? Right?

Newt cries harder.

It upsets Hermann, Mirror-Hermann, whoever the fuck this guy who is wearing Hermann’s face. It upsets him, obviously, and he flounders between trying to comfort Newt and trying to get away from him. Not that he’s surprised, if this Hermann thinks Newt is this universe’s _whoever-the-fuck-Charlie-is_.

“Herms, buddy, I’m so fucking lost. Please. _Please_ , you gotta help me,” Newt says, clinging to the man’s shoulder and almost shaking him.

“Mr. Kelly,” this bastard says, stiff and flustered, just like Herman _should_ be and, oh god, it makes it worse. Newt’s starting to lose it, his breathing completely erratic, but he croaks out a laugh all the same.

“Who the _fuck_ is Mr. Kelly?”

“Mr…Charlie. Please. I think you’ve got me confused with someone or some likely terrible circumstances have rendered you, well, like this.” Newt almost wants to be offended by the accusation. He should shout “fuck you too, Herms,” but the words are stuck behind the wall of desperate tears that are taking their sweet time falling out of him. He feels so drained. He kinda wants to just lay down on the sidewalk right then and there. “Look. Please, let me call someone to collect you. Perhaps, oh, what was his name? Ronald? Your friend that you were close with?”

“Who the fuck is _Ronald_?!” Newt shouted.

“Please,” the man says, looking around. “You’re making a scene.”

“Hermann,” Newt answers and laughs again. It sounds all wrong. Bitter. Hollow. _Wrong_. “I’m always making a scene, you know that.”

“Yes, quite,” the man says, shaking his head. “This isn’t doing us any good.” He sighs, checks his watch, and pinches his eyes. It’s almost a perfect double of Hermann in the lab that it sends Newt reeling back and back and back to, well, _now_ , apparently. 2018. That’s insane! What even happened?

He’s died. He’s dead. Right, didn’t he cover this already? He’s dead and this is weird Hell and Hermann’s not here because he’s alive and thank Christ he’s alive, because if Newt so much as scratched him after what happened at Shao’s Industries and no no no no no nonononono.

“Mr. Kelly, are you alright?”

“No!” Newt shrieks and rips at his hair. He’s been hyperventilating up to a dizzying fit, holding onto his chest, his lapels, his neck, his neck, his _neck_. He forces himself to let go and gasps for another lungful of air, clinging to the man. To Mirror-Hermann.

“Yes, fine,” the man says, looking around. He’s embarrassed. Or maybe worried. Could be a heavy mix of both. He takes Newt’s hand and starts to pull him down the street. “I suppose I owe you anyways. Come along, Mr. Kelly.”

“Dude, please. Please, out of everyone here, man. You gotta stop calling me that,” Newt says, crying harder, almost relieved to follow Mirror-Hermann.

“Fine,” the man says. “What would you like me to call you this time?”

“Hermann, stop.”

The man does so, sighing to the ground. He pulls his hand free of Newt’s and takes his time finding Newt’s face. He almost smiles. Doesn’t. Newt wants to rush in and kiss him, of course, and smooth away the scowl and promise he’ll be so much better than he was, but this isn’t really his Hermann.

“Good?” the man asks, trying to find some semblance of patience, like he’s talking to a child.

“What’s your name?” Newt finally asks, wiping away his eyes.

“Well.” He looks offended and then closes his eyes. “Yes, that’s right. I’m sure I was only ‘Science Bitch’ to you lot.”

“What?” The word punches out of Newt in an almost laugh, surprised and delighted and offended? Kinda? For him? With him? “God, who the fuck am I here?”

“Well, why don’t you tell me, Mr. Kelly.”

“Yeah, that’s not…I’m not him. Everybody keeps calling me that. I don’t know what happened. I’m _not_ Charlie Kelly, okay?”

Newt touches his chest, then reaches again for Hermann. Not Hermann. The man takes a tiny step back and Newt bunches his fists at his side.

“Look,” Newt starts, rubbing his fingers together in tiny, frantic circles. “Okay! Well, it’s gonna sound crazy.”

“Many of your theories had that quality, Mr. K—”

“My name is Newton Geiszler. Okay? Newt. My name is _Newt_ , got it?”

The man narrows his eyes, looking Newt once over, nothing lingering or playful like Hermann sometimes did, when he was tired or when he was in a mood, or when he thought he wasn’t being watched. Just an assessment. By someone who really thinks Newt is this potentially dangerous, crazy, _whatever_ person.

“Alright. Mr. Geisz—”

“Doctor,” Newt throws in, and smiles when he sees the man smile too. “Yeah. Six doctorates, man. I know.”

“Okay,” the man says, clearly not believing him. “Well. _Dr._ Geiszler.”

“Newt.”

“Right. Well, I can see you’re a very intelligent sort and I think whatever trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, you can just—”

“Hermann, Jesus _Christ_ , dude! I’m so fucking lost!”

The man opens and closes his mouth. He shakes his head but doesn’t dare to turn away. Instead, he slides his hands into his pockets and looks down at one stupendously hideous tie. Holy _shit,_ how did Newt not notice it.

“I have a few hours left before my lecture. Perhaps we could get some lunch and you can explain yourself better?”

“Lunch?” It’s a start. It’s a foot in the door. Newt steps forward and grips the man’s arm. “Hell yeah. I’ll do lunch. Thank you, man. Seriously.”

The man holds Newt’s wrist in an attempt to pry him off but is clearly not trying too hard. It is a tiny amount of contact and, honestly? In the moment? Newt could have wrapped him up in a hug and kiss his cheeks and buried his face against his shoulder and, like, wept or some shit, but he doesn’t. He lets the man hold his wrist and Newt decides to find comfort in that sliver of contact.

“I don’t think I brought my wallet,” Newt says, trailing after him. The man sighs and accidentally laughs. God, it’s as delightful as seeing the real Hermann laugh, even if it’s currently at Newt’s expense.

“No, you never do,” he says to himself. “Come along, then. My treat.”


	4. Chapter 4

Doc tries to leave three times during their meal.

It’s not that Newt can blame him. First, he thinks Newt’s Charlie Kelly, a janitor at the dive bar he woke up in. Nothing wrong with janitorial work, but the more he hears about Charlie, the more he’s almost afraid to be associated with him. He seems like the kind of guy who’s bitten open his fair share of necks—not an exaggeration, apparently—and might get jumped at any old opportunity as payback. And Newt’s crazy—self diagnosed, all the fucking time—but he’s not _swing-a-nail-studded-bat_ crazy.

That sounds judgmental. Is Newt allowed to be judgmental? He tried to destroy the world….

Well, apparently not. Whatever happened or is going to happen or happened somewhere else? Yeah, that guilt still sits in his everything. But the simple truth is MegaTokyo doesn’t even _exist_ and the world keeps on trucking. It all got erased in the soup.

Of….time.

 _Fuck_ , what a headache.

Secondly, tied to the first, Newt has to prove he’s a completely different person as in completely different personality type and knowledge and life and everything who only bears remarkable facial similarities and what not to Mr. Charles Rutherford Kelly—Doc got his name off a form filled out for some experiment he is too flustered and embarrassed to talk about, which seems promising, but Newt’s still trying to get him to stay through lunch, so he doesn’t pursue this. Yet.

So, those two things are happening. He’s not Charlie. He looks like Charlie and is not Charlie and doesn’t _act_ like Charlie and, okay, he doesn’t have a list. He has one goal. That’s it. That entire thing is frustrating enough that Doc attempts to get up and storm off. Three times.

Newt tries to show off how smart he is as a means to distance himself from Charlie, which isn’t really a thing Newt has to do. He _knows_ he’s intelligent. Six degrees in various subjects sounds like an exaggeration and the subjections he loves don’t translate into not-crazy. When put on the spot with a little time-travel fuckery? Yeah, he’s digging deep into his best-known subject. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t hold any merit in this world. He dives into biology, xenomorphology, the kaiju and the Precursors and the hivemind and drift tech and it all means dick here. It’s made up monsters. It’s pseudoscience.

It’s bullshit.

“Wait, hey, it’s _not_ bullshit,” Newt says, reaching across his plate of half-eaten tuna melt. Just like everything else today, it seemed good in theory and bad in practice. The cheese was melted at the edges and plastic-hard in the middle, defying all reason and general laws of thermodynamics, apparently. The mayo might be off? There was something too crunchy in the mix. He thinks he saw a blue piece of plastic right after he took a bite. He still chomped through half of it because, well, starving. But it was gross and, later, he’d remember to be disappointed about it, probably.

Doc sighs, settling himself back into the seat with a barely contained annoyance on his face that’s so reminiscent of Hermann, Newt thinks he’s gonna reach out to kiss him on instinct. But he’s got decades of practice of doing exactly _not_ that. He puts a fist on the table instead, gripping his napkin. He half-expects the sound of a brass head of a cane to hit the table, and there’s a weird nagging pause in his brain when it doesn’t happen.

It doesn’t need to happen.

This _isn’t_ Hermann.

This, ladies and Newt, is a Doctor of Psychology currently teaching as an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Born and raised in London, zero time living anywhere _near_ Bavaria, not even vacationed there as a child, and is weirdly confused why Newt keeps bringing it up. Had a cat, recently deceased. Lives alone. Is single, _thanks for asking_ he says, still very much unamused by Newt’s line of questioning, and has a wild goddamn name.

The dude’s name is Burn. _Burn._ As in, “oooooo, burn!” As in, “apply a topical ointment quick to that burn!” As in, “what the hell were your parents smoking to name a little baby boy fucking Burn?”

This. Coming from a man who proudly calls himself Newt, thank you. Hypocrisy is something he wears well and blindly.

So, Burn _Middle-Names-Not-Disclosed-But-You-Admit-To-Having-More-Than-One_ Howards insists pretty quickly to just call him what everyone calls him because “all you Americans are so unoriginal.”

“I’m not American,” Newt says in the middle of his little huffy speech that, again, slaps Newt with images of Hermann that he probably has a dopey look on his face and he hides it by taking another bite of now cold and awful tuna melt.

“You’re not?” Doc asks.

Doc, being his preferred nickname, apparently. His begrudging nickname, he says. Newt thinks Doc just likes the reminder he _is_ a doctor, like Hermann does. A title he’s earned and would rather people address him appropriately than with little nicknames and a casual way that makes him feel less than. Newt could launch over this table and get his fingers in that absurdly plastered down hair gel and knock both their chairs back as he lovingly and probably violently kissed him. They both had non-injured hips at the moment. He could change that.

Doc snaps his fingers to get Newt to focus.

“Are you even listening?”

Newt drags his eyes up from Doc’s lips. “Huh? Oh, yeah. No, I am.”

“You are American then?”

“What? No, dude, you’re not listening. I’m not. I was born in Berlin.”

“You don’t have much of an accent,” Doc says, unamused.

“Yeah, no shit,” Newt says and flicks his finger against the plate in front of him. “ _Ich murmle auch nicht auf Deutsch._ Not often, anyways.”

Doc gets out his phone and is quickly typing into it. Newt has to stretch his neck, but Doc won’t let him see his phone, until he finally raises an eyebrow. “So you _do_ know German.”

“Uh. Yeah. I just said—”

“Mr. Geiszler,” Doc says, interrupting him immediately.

“Dr. Geiszler,” Newt answers on instinct and shakes his head. “No. Newt. Just call me Newt, man.”

“Newt. Yes.” He sighs as he steeples his fingers, setting his phone down. He’s putting on his Lecturing Voice with his Lecturing Face. Newt can feel it. He grins, tenting his own fingers to mock him playfully. “I am still having a hard time believing this.”

“I bet.”

“Let me finish.” Newt’s heart beats a little faster. This isn’t Hermann. His heart needs to calm down and get it together. Maybe he can pretend, for a little bit, that it’s beating just for Hermann. Tangentially. There’s math in there to make this right. And, he’s not paying attention again. Shit. “—that the previously mentioned Mr. Kelly—”

“Charlie.”

“Right. _Charlie_ , er, while part of the experiment, claimed to learn Chinese in a day.”

“Oh, I’m shit at Chinese,” Newt says, leaning back. “You’d think I’d be better, but, honestly? I didn’t really absorb it as much as They did.”

“They being…right.” They nod together; an understanding. Feels like they’re making grounds. “And while I don’t claim to know _all_ of Mr. Kelly’s—”

“Charlie’s.”

“Yes,” Doc says through gritted teeth. “ _Right_. Thank you. I don’t know all of Charlie’s history, I’m almost certain the man _didn’t_ know German. Now, who’s to say this isn’t all an elaborate con? I wouldn’t begin to guess the purpose of it. But, from what’s been presented, I suppose, with the tattoos, the little defect there in your eye.”

Right. He’s got that weird coloration in his eye from the damage done with the drifts when he first discovered the Hivemind. Yes, he had LASIK and yes, he doesn’t need glasses. But he has an almost imperceptible change in the color and the fact that Doc knows this meant he spent a long goddamn time staring at both Charlie’s eyes and Newt’s eyes.

Maybe his flustered blushing is more.

Holy shit.

Maybe Doc _likes_ —

“I suppose we must go with the simplest explanation that you are, in fact, _not_ Charlie.”

“Right.” Newt smiles, kinda relieved. Kinda worried, and not sure why. “Occam’s Razor.”

Doc smiles, an amused crinkle in his eyebrows. “Points again to Newt. Charlie always calls it ‘Okay Razorblades.’”

“Were you two close?” Newt ventures.

Too soon. Doc bristles and pulls back, his face falling.

“No. Certainly not.” He begins to reach for his wallet.

“Wait. Wait, sorry. No, I just. Hold on,” Newt says quickly, and touches Doc’s arm before he pulls back. “Sorry. But, just to be clear…you believe me, right?”

Doc slowly lowers his hand back onto the table, staring at Newt in a way that he should have glasses on and should be looking through them.

“I suppose, for now, I do.”

“Great,” Newt says with a sigh, settling back in his seat. “Because I don’t have anyone here. I’m a man out of time and, honestly, I need a place to stay.”

“To stay?”

Doc’s eyes widen. He’s about to protest when a waitress comes back through a shift change and makes a horrible face or rage and disgust and nearly dumps a pot of coffee on him.

“Charlie?!” The woman shrieks at him and he doesn’t react at first like he should. Hence the pot of coffee threatening to spill on his lap. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“What?” Newt blinks and looks up, holding his hands up to protect his chest, because, now, he doesn’t want to judge, but this woman looks like she’s going to stab him. “N-No. Sorry, I think—”

“Are you following me?” She scoffs, rolls her eyes. “No, of course. Like that would stop. This is a nice gig, Charlie. You can’t ruin this one!”

“I. I didn’t,” Newt stutters out, seriously confused.

“Yeah, right. Okay. What’s up with the ugly ass tattoos? I can still see your _face_ , asshole.” She grabs his plate and swipes it at his chest. Clearly unprofessional, sure, but she seems too livid to care. “Get out of here, Charlie! Take your creepy friend with you!”

Someone is coming from the back and Doc looks as confused and mortified as Newt feels. He’s grabbing his wallet in the middle of the confrontation, attempting to put money on the table.

“Get out! Both of you! Get out of here!” she yells, pushing them towards the door.

“Sorry. I – we’re going! Okay!”

They stumble out onto the pavement, Doc attempting to fix his ugly wide tie, his shirt, his hair. God forbid a strand escape the hard helmet look he has on.

“Do you _know_ that woman?” he asks, picking a piece of lettuce off Newt’s shirt without thinking. “No. Of course you don’t,” he answers immediately, looking around for more witnesses to their embarrassment. “Alright. I’ve got to get to work and you’ve….”

His voice trails off. They both know Newt doesn’t have anywhere. Doc might suspect this is still a weird stunt the original Charlie Kelly is trying to pull. He can have his reservation as long as he helps Newt.

“I’ve got nowhere to go. Yeah,” Newt says lamely.

A hand slaps the window behind them and the waitress’s face is right there, glaring at them, mouthing threats.

“We should go,” Doc says and Newt nods, repeating him.

“Yeah. Yep, we should go.”

He follows Doc away from the building and, lucky day, Doc doesn’t shoo him off. Maybe they can figure this out….


End file.
